


Hurts Less Than the Quiet

by arrafrost



Category: The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Death, M/M, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 21:00:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10521753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arrafrost/pseuds/arrafrost
Summary: This time Jensen dies.





	

Clay’s hand squeezed this shoulder. Not as a comfort, now was not the time for comfort, but as acknowledgement. There was an understanding in the brief contact that there would be no fix for this, no mission, no plan.

Cougar’s face was hidden by this hat. No one said anything. Hours had seemed to pass since Clay’s hand slipped from his shoulder and the Losers dissipated, each with a hand on his shoulder or arm, gripping but not comforting. The silence persisted.

Sitting on the ground turned out to be the best option for his weak legs despite the grass being damp from the rain. He wanted to laugh at the cliche but there were few parts inside of him capable of laughter anymore. Cougar placed his bouquet of flowers in front of the tombstone. “You left me, Jay.”

The petunias rustled in the breeze. Perhaps a response, perhaps everything was futile.

“He loved you.”

The voice came from behind him and he took off his hat slowly out of respect. Jensen’s sister knelt down next to the grave beside him. She didn’t care that her bare legs were getting dirty or that her black heels were sinking into the ground. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were wet. It didn’t seem like she’d stopped crying once. It was possible she was still crying now. He can’t remember her name.

“Jake talked about you all the time, so loud and happy… boy never stopped smiling when your name came up. You-” She was definitely crying now as she choked on her words and took a breath to compose herself. It didn’t work. She kept crying as she persisted, “-you made him so _happy. Thank you.”_

Cougar felt the tears in his own eyes spill over as she smiled weakly at him. It was sad but it was honest and grateful. It was a knife to Cougar’s heart.

“Thank you for taking care of my brother. He needed to be happy. Doing that work, the horrors he came back with… he was scared all the time but you- he wasn’t scared with you. Please don’t blame yourself. I don’t. Jake didn’t either, he would never. You did the best you could.”

And it wasn’t enough. None of their bests were enough this time. Cougar knew he shouldn’t, but he did shoulder some of the blame.

She leaned close and wrapped an arm around his shoulder in a half hug. “I wish I could have met you before this. I wish a lot of things…” This was one of the worst feelings Cougar thought he’d ever experienced in his life. The guilt and the sadness, the pit of emptiness that he was tumbling into. She stood up, her small lifeline in the water pulling up without him. “Please, come visit. My daughter would love to meet you.”

Cougar coughed to cover up the sob that nearly escaped. Jensen’s niece was the light of his life, meeting her would kill him but he nodded. It was something he had to do.

Her smile was an acknowledgement, a thank you, and a reminder of Jensen’s smile all in one. He nodded back and then she was gone, her heels piercing through the ground in a metaphoric sort of way. Cougar wanted to curl up on top of the grave but instead he forced himself to stand, his hand on Jensen’s gravestone to help him up. His hand lingered, gripping the stone and feeling the cold finality of it all. The future was full of visits to this grave, each time with a different fruity cocktail that Jensen liked to be poured on the grave and spiked with enough vodka to make it tolerable. But right now, Cougar wanted to sleep.

***

It takes Cougar less than an hour to realize that he’s no longer comfortable with silence. Before Jensen, Cougar could go weeks without any talking, music, or sound. Now he’s become accustomed to the constant chatter, Jay’s endless playlists of music that shouldn’t be on the same playlist, the subtle hum of the computers Jensen never turned off. It’s far too quiet for him but he knows listening to any of those sounds would make things worse.

He lays down on the couch and immediately regrets it. The smell of Jensen is everywhere in his apartment though, no way to escape it.

_“See you on the other side, Cougs.”_

If only he could shut his brain off for a few hours. Stop hurting, stop feeling, stop replaying. Jensen looked hopeful, confident, goofy with excitement. Like he could handle anything, like nothing would stop him and he’d have fun doing it. Cougar believed him.

He watched Jensen crawl through the vent and had no reason to think he wouldn’t be coming back the same way. He was an idiot. They should have retreated or been more careful or done something, _anything_ differently. But no one could have predicted the explosion, not even Jensen with his infinite hacking abilities.

The afterlife was not what Cougar had in mind for seeing Jensen again.

“This is a shit world, Jensen.” He swallowed the lump in his throat and placed his hat over his face, muffling his words and the emotions that would follow. “Went to the other side without me… Can’t do that, Jay… You can’t…”

He broke the silence long enough to cry himself to sleep, but he knew he’d be waking up to the quiet, constant reminder that he was alone and Jensen wasn’t coming back.


End file.
